The middle class and radical Islam in Russia

In the second part of his look at Putin's Russia, Moscow correspondent Norman Hermant explores the rise of the middle class and an attempt to rein in radical Islam.

Transcript

icon-plusicon-minus

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Tonight we continue our look at life in Vladimir Putin's Russia. On the economic front the country's vast mineral wealth is driving the growth of Russia's middle class but when it comes to the issue of security there are concerns about the rise in Islamist terrorism.

In part two of our series, Moscow correspondent Norman Hermant meets the university rector who is trying to rain in the spread of radical Islam and a fitness entrepreneur who is catering to Russia's burgeoning middle class.

NORMAN HERMANT, REPORTER: So begins another day at the office for one of Russia's best known business women. Olga Slutsker a former fencer and aerobics enthusiast has built an empire in the last two decades. This club in central Moscow was her first.

OLGA SLUTSKER, PRESIDENT, WORLD CLASS FITNESS: One of the biggest gyms in centre of Moscow.

NORMAN HERMANT: In Soviet times this Western mix of high tech equipment and exercise was unknown but when communism collapsed, Olga Slutsker had a feeling Moscow was ready to embrace working out Western style.

OLGA SLUTSKER: Really in Russia all processes starts from Moscow. Moscow is the capital of the country and not only capital, capital of the mind, you know.

NORMAN HERMANT: If anything illustrates the tastes of the emerging middle class it's clubs like these with membership fees of more than $2,000 a year.

Moscow has by far the biggest and most prosperous middle class in Russia. Its GDP per capita is the equivalent of more than $23,000 per year. That's nearly three times the figure for Russia's regions, the equivalent of more than $8,000 per year.

By comparison, Australia's GDP per capita is about $60,000 per year.

Despite the wealth discrepancy, middle class spending habits have reached well into regional Russia. This chain has grown to 38 clubs, half outside of Moscow.

OLGA SLUTSKER: That's of course prove somehow that middle class is exist. I can tell you that we have clubs in other cities and 14 cities all over Russia and right now really most of our clients are middle class people.

NORMAN HERMANT: In building up her business Olga Slutsker has become a very public person. Car companies seek her out for advertisements. And tabloid news programs targeted her during a bitter divorce and custody battle with her ex-husband, a wealthy businessman and politician.

But she's also something of a rarity in Russia, a woman running a large business. Some suggest much of the criticism directed at her may be because she's broken the unwritten rules that still dictate the role women play in Russian society.

OLGA SLUTSKER: I don't feel and I don't think that men like when their wives want to do something separately. Small or big, it doesn't matter. They like dependency from woman.

NORMAN HERMANT: At times women can seem almost entirely absent from Russian public life. They're barely seen around the cabinet table, they're largely invisible in the Duma. This in a country with 10.5 million more women than men.

NORMAN HERMANT: For Olga Slutsker the rise of the new Russia has bought opportunity and success.

But in a very different part of the country the fall of communism is still playing out with potentially dangerous consequences.

This is the famous Kremlin in Kazan in the heart of Islamic Russia - Tatarstan. From the uprisings that began the Arab spring, the ongoing civil war in Syria, Russia's policies have been partly shaped by a persistent fear of radical Islam. It's estimated Muslims will soon make up 15 per cent of Russia's population. Most follow a moderate form of Islam but there are fears in places like Tartarstan that is changing.

The threat is real. Last year the Republican's chief mufti barely escaped an assassin's bomb that destroyed his four-wheel drive. Another Islamic leader was shot dead. A fundamentalist group have posted videos online claiming responsibility for the attacks.

At Tatarstan's government backed Islamic University, there's an effort to steer students away from fundamentalist Islam. Here the stress is on the cooperative, nonviolent version, that has existed in Tartarstan for centuries.

GUZEL AGLIULLIVA, RUSSIAN ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY STUDENT: It's very important that I came into this university that give such Islam that are not different from our traditions, that Islam is very peaceful, information, complex knowledges and reliable Islam.

NORMAN HERMANT: And reliable Islam, says the university's rector, depends on making Muslims feel like equal Russian citizens. As nationalism rises in other parts of the country the danger grows.

RAFIK MUKHAMETSHIN, RECTOR, RUSSIAN ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY (TRANSLATED): Here radicalism has planted some roots. Dealing with rights of abused Muslims, that's when Muslims start looking for a reason to blame their problems on someone else. On another part of the population.

NORMAN HERMANT: Islam in Tartarstan has long been moderate and relatively low key but many suggest the collapse of the Soviet Union provided the ideal conditions to promote radical Islam. Fundamentalist wahaba Imams flooded in to teach Russia's Muslims. First they were in Chechnya says this analyst, now they're here.

RAIS SULEYMANOV, RUSSIAN INSTITUTE OF STRATEGIC STUDIES (TRANSLATED): In the '90s some foreign wahabas from Saudi Arabia were fighting for the hearts and minds of Chechens. There are one million Chechens. Presently they fight for the hearts and minds of Tatas and there are five million of them.

NORMAN HERMANT: The majority, it seems, remain moderate. There are few signs yet that militants here are anywhere nearly as strong as they are in caucasus regions like Chechnya and Dagestan. But for two years Russia's Government has watched the steady march of fundamentalist Islam in the Middle East with alarm.

ANALYST (TRANSLATIED): It is impossible in Russia to escape the impact of the world because for Muslims it is quite attractive what is happening in the Islamic countries.

NORMAN HERMANT: Keeping radical Islam at bay in the midst of the Russian heartland may be the Kremlin's biggest security challenge.